


you're here, i'm okay

by drmarc



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29330043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drmarc/pseuds/drmarc
Summary: Jo Wilson, formerly Brooke Holland, and Alex Karev meet again after how many years. The last time they saw each other was before Alex had left for college, after that he never looked back. Can seeing each other again bring back feelings that were never resolved, or feelings that were always there, lingering in the back of their heads and pushed down to the bottom of their heart?Slightly AU
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii! So I wanted to try something new and I really don't know where this story is going because I'm just writing and writing but endgame is Jolex. This is a slightly AU story because this is all happening in the time frame of season 9 but they already know who each other are from their pasts. I do not own anything you recognize. ENJOY!

**“Hey, you up for Joe’s later?”** Meredith and Cristina come up to Alex who was by the nurse’s station. He looks up and nods mindlessly at them.

**“Yeah, sure. When are we never there anyways?”** His friends look at each other and shrug in agreement to the statement. They then continue talking with each other while Alex continues on checking on his patients’ charts.

**“Oh, have you guys met or seen any of the interns?”** Meredith asks, her eyes looking back and forth from Cristina to Alex.

**“Oh yeah. Hate them already.”** Cristina throws out flippantly when someone shows up beside her, reaching over for a chart.

The person, an intern, beside her says,  **“Well, thanks a lot, Dr. Yang.”** She doesn’t pick her head up but just focuses on the chart in her hand. 

The voice makes Alex stop what he’s doing because the voice was just so familiar but he just pushes it to the back of his mind and chalks it up to coincidence then goes back to what he was previously doing.

**“Her I tolerate because she knows not to screw up or show off.”** Cristina says to Meredith, pointing to the intern. Meredith only chuckles at Cristina before grabbing her patient’s chart as well. They’re all focused on the charts in their hands when someone speaks up.

**“Wrestling dumbass?”** The name and the voice makes his head snap up so fast, he gives himself a headache and almost breaks it, but he catches himself just in time. 

He catches her eyes and he finds himself unconsciously breaking out in a smile, mirroring the one on her face as she practically runs over to him, completely disregarding the looks on the people’s faces around them.  **“Lady hulk!”** He laughs out loud as she jumps on him, wrapping her arms around his neck while his goes around her waist, lifting her up from the floor momentarily.

Jo laughs with glee and squeezes him tight. He puts her down and she pulls back enough to see his face clearly.  **“Oh my God, it is you!”** She slaps his arm but pulls him back for another hug.

**“I should change it to Dr. Lady Hulk now, huh?”** Alex says as they pull away.

Jo laughs before saying,  **“Does that mean it’s ‘Operating dumbass’ now, too?”**

**“You’re now officially a doctor and you only wrestle and brawl with people in the bar and on the streets, right?”** Jo jests at him and he rolls his eyes at her

**“Ha ha.”** Alex quips sarcastically.  **“Come on, am I wrong?”** Jo says, and after she says that, Cristina and Meredith, who are now joined by Arizona and Callie, all but give them the third degree.

**“When did, when did that happen?”** Meredith asks them as she points a finger at the two, amused and surprised by what she just witnessed.

Alex looks at them, the smile still on his face, as they wait for him or her to answer. Mostly him.  **“We knew each other in high school.”** He gives them the half true answer, knowing that it’s not his place to tell them they were in the same group home considering Jo’s a new intern.

**“Huh.”** Callie says, suspicious of his answer but accepts it nonetheless as she shrugs while looking at Arizona, who was not buying his answer at all.

**“Yeah, he liked to beat people up for fun so I suggested he try wrestling and look where that got you, dumbass.”** Jo tilts her head to the side as she looks at him, looking so proud of herself, considering that his wrestling scholarship is what got him through college.

**“Yeah, yeah.”** Alex says back, dismissively while softly pushing Jo’s head back.

Bailey suddenly comes around the corner.  **“What are you all doing standing around here?”** She says loudly to the group of doctors gathered by the nurse’s station.

**“Dr. Bailey, Wilson and Alex know each other from high school.”** Bailey, who liked gossip as much as the next person, opened her mouth in surprise. 

**“Really now?”** She says, looking at the two. 

Alex scrunches his face up in confusion as he turns to look at Jo.  **“Wait, Wilson? She’s not Wil-”** Alex gets cut off by Jo yanking his arm.

He looks at her and stares intently at her face, knowing immediately something was up. Jo opens her mouth to speak but closes it when she sees the other doctors still there, looking at them, by the corner of her eye.  **“I guess we have a lot to catch up on.”** She chuckles, seemingly nervous.

Alex goes to ask her a question but gets beat by her pager. Jo checks it and curses under her breath.  **“We will catch up later, I promise I will tell you everything. I’m really glad you’re here.”** She starts to walk down the hall.

**“This isn’t over!”** Alex yells after her.

Jo turns her head and flashes him a soft smile.  **“I know!”** She yells back and hurries down the hall, muttering apologies to the people she bumps into on the way.

Alex stares at her figure as it disappears from his sight before sighing to himself and turning back to the nurse’s station where the four doctors were still there. Meredith looks at him with an eyebrow raised, an amused smile on all their faces. 

**“Well?”** Meredith urges him to talk.

Alex scowls at them,  **“Oh, I don’t have time for this.”** His pager starts beeping and he checks it. He takes one of the charts he was previously holding and starts walking down the hall to the elevator as he hands the chart to an intern waiting for him by the hallway, the four doctors following him.  **“I’m not telling you anything because there’s nothing to tell.”**

They all step onto the elevator when it opens.  **“Well, then why are you so defensive?”** Cristina says knowingly.

**“Oh come on, you can’t blame us for being curious. I mean you practically squeezed her to death in that hallway.”** Arizona says as the other three doctors laugh slightly in agreement.

**“I didn’t practically squeeze her to death, you’re exaggerating.”** Alex defends himself.

**“Okay, then, ‘wrestling dumbass’.”** Cristina mocks him and they all laugh at the scowl he gives them as they all get out of the elevator and walk to the pit.

Alex is walking to a trauma room when he realizes the four doctors are still following him.  **“Why are you guys still following me?”** He grumbles.

**“We’re not following you. We got paged, too.”** They then set off to work and momentarily forgets about what they had just witnessed and all that just happened with Alex and Jo in the open hallway.


	2. part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of abuse  
> read at your own risk  
> I do not own anything you recognize, enjoy!

Alex’s shift just ended and he was walking to the interns’ locker room to see if Jo was done with her shift as well. He gets there and only a few interns are in there, one of them being Jo who had just changed from her scrubs. 

**“Hey, you up for drinks?”** Alex says to Jo quietly, making his presence known. Jo turns around to face him, a smile instantly forming on her face.

**“Yeah, sure. But I’m not sure a bar is a great place for us to catch up.”** She grimaced, her right eyebrow twitching which is a known tell to Alex that she’s nervous about them catching up.

Alex hums.  **“Okay, drinks at my house then.”** He says and Jo nods as she grabs her bag and walks towards Alex. Out of instinct, Alex takes her bag and swings it across his shoulder. He doesn’t even notice that he did it, but Jo does. She smiles at him and they start walking to the parking lot.

**“Do you have your car?”** Alex asks her.

Jo shakes her head,  **“Yeah but I caught a ride with Steph this morning so.”** Alex nods at her as he guides her to his car. Alex texts Cristina that he won’t be able to come to Joe’s tonight before starting the car.

The drive to his house, the so-called frat house and Meredith’s former house, is short but nostalgic. They were the closest of friends back then and everybody who knew of them individually, knew not to mess with them. Jo would sometimes tag along with Alex if he would train and she knew how to fight. She was the only one in the group home that wasn’t afraid of Alex, and she always taunted him to fight with her but Alex would never hit a girl no matter how annoying she may be.

They only grew close over time. At the age of 14, Jo was quite mature for her age, and it only helped her become closer to Alex, considering the 4 year age gap they had. Their banters only intensified and their talks got deeper, you could say they became each other’s person. 

Jo makes him stop at a convenience store to grab a couple of beers and more alcoholic beverages to show him the drinks she learned to make in college.

They get to the house and the first thing Jo notices is how bare it is.  **“Did you just move in?”** She asks him, walking inside what she thinks is the living room.  **“Ooh a fireplace.”** She says excitedly to herself.

**“No, I just don’t want to spend any money on new furniture. I live with Yang and it’s only a matter of time before she breaks and buys some furniture.”** Alex puts both their bags down by the stairs and heads to the kitchen to put the beers they just bought in the fridge.  **“So why did you buy all these drinks and chips again?”** He asks, putting them down on the counter top as Jo appears in the kitchen.

**“I told you, I’m gonna make us some drinks I learned in college. And the chips are so that we can eat something.”** Jo starts to open the cabinets to look inside them and sees literally nothing except a few paper plates.  **“It’s a good thing I bought those whiskey glasses.”** She says to Alex, who just chuckles.

**“I told you, Yang’s gonna break soon.”** He says.  **“And so are you. Are you gonna start talking now, Brooke?”** He gives her a look that she knows all too well.

Jo sighs before saying,  **“Alright, fine. Let’s talk after I make our drinks and after you get some blankets and pillows, and turn the fireplace on.”** She gives him a cheeky smile and starts to make some drinks.

Alex sighs but does what she wants. He grabs some blankets and pillows from the cabinet and lays them in front of the fireplace. He turns the fireplace on and fixes the pillows before sitting down in front of the fire, waiting for Jo to finish. He tries to prepare himself for what she’s gonna tell him but he can’t think clearly.  _ She changed her name, that’s a given because Bailey called her Wilson. Did she change her first name, too? What the hell happened after I left for college? _

His train of thought breaks when he hears her walk into the living room, carrying two glasses, two beers, and the chips she bought. He helps her with the drinks and places it on the floor in front of them as she sits down beside him. 

**“What’s this called?”** He asks as he smells the drink Jo handed him and looks at her.

Jo takes a sip of hers before answering,  **“Lady hulk. Taste it.”** She says, enthusiastically.

**“Why is it called Lady hulk?”** He asks her. She doesn’t answer but urges him on to sip the drink instead. He takes a sip and is met with a strong and burning feeling as it slides down his throat.  **“What the hell did you put in that?”** He asks, coughing slightly,

**“It packs a mean punch, doesn’t it?”** She laughs at him and pats his back. 

He nods in agreement.  **“I know why it’s called Lady hulk now.”** He chortles and puts the drink down in front of him.  **“So, are you gonna start explaining why Bailey called you Wilson?”**

Jo looks at him nervously as he stares at her softly, waiting for her to talk. She shakily breathes in and looks over at him, as if trying to gain strength from his warm eyes and nostalgic presence.  **“Okay, first of all, it’s Jo Wilson now. Brooke Holland is long gone.”** Jo tries to say enthusiastically but Alex can see right through her.

**“What happened after I left, Jo?”** He uses the name she calls herself now to try and get himself used to it.

**“A lot.”** She whispers, her head downcast and her hand playing with the hem of her shirt. Alex inhaled sharply at the sound of her voice when she answered him. He reaches over and takes her hand in his, his action of showing comfort for her, squeezing it tightly.

Jo returns the gesture and picks her head up, looking him directly in the eyes.  **“A lot happened after you left, but I don’t want you to think, even for a second, that you had any fault in what ever happened. Okay? I know you and you’re gonna say that you never should have left but I don’t want you to even think that, alright? You finally did something for yourself and I’m not going to let you regret that. Can you promise me to try to not blame yourself?”** Jo firmly asks him, her hand gripping his tightly.

Alex nods,  **“I promise.”** He says the word because he knows she wants to hear them and not just see him promise. So she knows he’s sincere.

Jo smiles and nods to herself, taking in a deep breath.  **“Before you left, Aaron and Amber went into a foster home and they were soon adopted, you know that.”** She nods at him and he does the same.

**“After you left, I stayed in the group home for about a year and a half before I decided to leave. I packed my things and I stole a car. Lived in it through the rest of high school. I applied for a scholarship in all these Ivy League universities and I got into Princeton, so I went there. Took me about two days because I clearly couldn’t afford riding a plane so I drove there, in two different cars.”** She quirks her eyebrow at him which makes him roll his eyes as she giggles at his reaction.

**“Graduated cum laude and I stopped studying for about two years so I could save up some money for when I would go to med school. I applied for a scholarship at Harvard and I got in. That was when I met him.”** She stops and looks at his face, staring intently and waiting for the smallest tell tale reaction of his. His eyes widen for just a moment and at just the smallest bit, and his lips form a thin line.  **“I was still living in my car-”**

**“It’s not exactly yours, you stole it remember?”** He tries to lighten the mood, feeling it shift as she goes deeper into her story.

**“I stole it which makes it mine.”** She slaps his knee and continues,  **“I met him and he was so sweet and so kind and just not the monster he turned out to be. We went out on a few dates before we became official. We were together for 4 months when he told me he loved me. We were together for 7 months when he asked me to move in with him and marry him, and we were together for 10 when we got married at the courthouse.”** Jo sees the look of surprise on Alex’s face, but it was gone as soon as it came. He pulls their joined hands to his lap and occasionally squeezes hers.

**“I should have seen the signs from the start, because by the time we got married, I realized I had no more friends. I had nobody but him and it’s stupid and scary but at the time, I didn’t care. About a month and a half into our marriage, he had this dinner thing and he brought me. When we came home, he started telling me how I made a fool out of him. I laughed and the next thing I knew, I couldn’t open my eyes. He apologized and he showered me with food and gifts. He said that he would never do it again but I should’ve known better. This went on for my whole stay at Harvard.”** Alex closed his eyes and inhaled deeply and sharply as if he was in pain. He couldn’t stop picturing her, battered and bruised, or lying on the floor in a puddle of her blood. By this time, Jo was already crying, clearly pained from the resurfacing memories.

**“One day, I woke up to him kicking me in the back. He broke my rib and it punctured my lung so he had to take me to the hospital. He told them I fell down the stairs and they believed him. That was my breaking point. I made a plan and I started with applying for a change of name petition with no address, no number, just with an email that I had recently made at the local library so he wouldn’t know. One night after graduation, he said he was going to work late so that night, I packed a bag, got some of the money he stashed in the house because of his paranoid ass, and I left. I went into hiding for a year. During that time, I got my petition signed, changed my name, got all my legal documents changed, too. I filed for a new passport with my new name and applied for the surgical residency program here at Seattle Grace Mercy West.”** She took a deep breath and cleared her throat before continuing.

**“When I got in, I was so happy and excited to finally leave that town, to leave him. I was going to be free for the first time again in four years. I had saved up enough money for me to be able to afford a plane ticket to go here and get an apartment so I didn’t have to steal another car and be the homeless intern. I got away from him and I got here. And you’re here. You’re here, and I’m okay. You’re here, you’re really here.”**

By the time Jo finished, she was sobbing and Alex was trying not to cry. She kept repeating the words  _ you're here  _ and he doesn't know why that was like a dart straight to the heart every time she said it.

He pulled her arm and pulled her to his chest, encasing her in a warm embrace. Her hands gripping onto his shirt like a scared child. He put his hand on her hair and softly caressed it as he whispered sweet nothings into her ear to calm her down. Just like he used to when they were teenagers.

-

About an hour later, Jo had fallen asleep on Alex's chest from the exhaustion of crying and remembering those awful times taking over her. 

She was asleep but she was still hiccuping, which told Alex that she wasn't sleeping that deeply. He wanted to put her in a bed where it was more comfortable but didn't want to risk her waking up.

So he stayed there, waiting for her hiccups to subside. Less than an hour later, he heard a car door slam shut outside and the door opening a few seconds later. He turned his head towards the door and could hear Cristina and Meredith.

Once he saw them, he put his free hand up to his lips, gesturing for them to be quiet. Cristina and Meredith saw him and were surprised at the scene before them. The two women exchanged a look before looking back at Alex and heading to the kitchen.

Alex stares at Jo, realizing her hiccups have stopped so he starts to adjust her in his arms. He picks her up and she stirs, her swollen eyes slowly opening and she starts mumbling his name.

**“Shh, it’s alright I got you. I’m right here, you’re okay, I got you. Go back to sleep, I got you.”** He reassures her, which does the trick because he feels her relax and her eyes fall close again. 

He continues to go up to his room and places Jo in his bed. She stirs again but she doesn’t wake up anymore and snuggles into the blanket Alex put on her. He stares at her sleeping figure and just can’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was abused.  _ Someone, a man, her husband, abused her! How can any man do that to a woman? To her?  _ These thoughts circle around his head as he closes the lights and the door to his room quietly. 

He goes down to the living room and picks up their barely touched beers and the drinks she made before he heads to the kitchen where Meredith and Cristina were drinking a bottle of tequila. He places the glasses on the countertop and chugs the remaining of his beer while the two women stare at him.

**“So was the reunion bad? Is that why you look like you just want to drink your life away?”** Cristina says to him, chuckling. Alex shakes his head and doesn’t answer her, instead he grabs Jo’s beer and drinks half of it. The images of Jo with bruises and cuts all over her face and body haunting him.

Meredith takes notice of the drinks Jo made and gets curious.  **“What is this? Is this yours?”** She points to one of the glasses and he nods. She takes it and takes a sip, shuddering as it goes down her throat.  **“That,”** She hums and clears her throat.  **“Is strong. Are you planning to get black out drunk?”**

He shakes his head.  **“No, Broo-Jo,”** He catches himself in time and corrects himself. He definitely doesn’t want these two to know anything about Jo’s past or they’ll ask a lot of questions.  **“Jo made those drinks, wanted to show off her skills in making alcoholic beverages.”** Cristina gestures for Meredith to hand the drink to her and takes a sip.

**“Yup. That is strong. I guess the girl knows how to hold her alcohol.”** Cristina makes an impressed face. Alex downs Jo’s beer and grabs some more from the fridge.  **“Keep it down alright?”** Cristina says to Alex, who was making his way up the stairs. He flips her off and heads to his room, making sure to keep quiet so as to not wake Jo up.

He sits down on the floor by the wall, facing the bed. He takes the cap off the beer bottle and drinks some of it. He places his arms on his knees and alternates from looking at Jo and his hands holding the beer bottle.

Alex loved Brooke. He loves Jo. She can change her name, her looks, and Alex would still love her. He didn’t really want to leave her in the group home by herself, he was ready to go to community college just so that he would still be there for her. But she pushed him to accept the scholarship at the University of Iowa. 

_ What if I had told her how I felt before I left? What if we started to try for a relationship that time? What if we worked? She probably wouldn’t have had to go through all that she did and I wouldn’t have wasted my time sleeping with strangers and chasing after women who couldn’t give a crap about me. Maybe if I had been a little more brave, I could've protected her. Yeah, no, she probably didn’t feel the same way about me. And she was fourteen! I felt like I was violating her even by having those feelings for her at the time. _

_ The bastard who hurt her is still out there somewhere, probably living guilt-free while Brook- Jo had to change her identity just to escape him, just to finally be free. I should find out who that bastard is and kill that son of a- _

**_“_ ** **I can practically hear your thoughts.”** Her voice brings him out of his head. Alex looks up and sees her staring at him from her place on the bed, her eyes unreadable.  **“You promised me you’d at least try to not blame yourself.”**

**“This is me really trying.”** He tells her, his voice low and with his head turned towards her, she can see his red-rimmed eyes and how he’s trying his hardest not to let any tears fall. Her eyes soften and she sits up as she motions for him to go over to her.

**“Bring the beers.”** She tells him as she scoots over to the other side of the bed and leans her back on the headboard, her hand outstretched to him. He sighs before standing up and handing her a beer. He sits down beside her and copies her position. 

She takes a sip of her beer and turns her head to look at him, catching him staring at her as a tear makes it way down his cheek.  **“Hey, it’s okay.”** She tells him after he quickly turns away from her, not wanting her to see him cry.  **“I’ve already seen you cry before. It’s no big deal.”** She jokes, which she thinks is successful because she hears him slightly laugh but when he turns back around, she sees that the tears are now falling uncontrollably.

**“Oh, Alex.”** She says in a soft voice. She pulls him towards her and he doesn’t fight it and instead lays his head down on her lap like he used to when he got upset.  **“It’s okay. Alright, you’re okay. We’re okay. I’m okay. I’m here, I’m okay.”** She runs her fingers through his hair, tears already welling up in her eyes and some are already falling, and Alex just lets go. He sobs like a girl and lets Jo comfort him like she used to. He feels everything hit him as she says those words. Every emotion. Every image. Every thought.  _ She always knew the right thing to say. _

They fell asleep in that position and once morning came and the time for them to go back to work was approaching, they were still asleep because they had left their bags downstairs and their alarms were their phones and pagers. 

Cristina opened the door to his room, ready for the image of the two of them naked but was surprised at what she saw. She was going to barge in his room to ask him if he had any plans to go to work or if he was planning to stay home all day with the intern and have sex all day long. She didn’t expect him to be curled up in the intern’s lap.

She walks over to him and pokes his arm in a way to wake him.  **“Alex, we have to go to work, so does hairball. She’s my intern for the day and she’s gonna be late for rounds if you don’t wake her up.”** Cristina says to which he just nods at and closes his eyes again. Alex seemed to sense that Cristina was still standing by his bed so he groaned and sat up.

**“I will wake her up after you leave.”** He tells her, giving her a scowl to which Cristina just mockingly smiles at. 

Once she’s left the room, Alex starts to gently coax Jo out of sleep.  **“Wake up, princess. You’re gonna be late for work.”** Jo groans and stirs before opening her eyes a moment later.

**“I thought I told you years ago never to call me that again.”**

**“Yeah well, it’s the only thing that wakes you up as fast as you just did.”** He says, a small smile present on his face. It’s like ever since he saw her again, he was always smiling. Except for last night when she told him about everything that happened and her abusive husband.

They stay in bed for a few minutes, basking in the comfortable silence. They only start to get ready for work when they hear Cristina yell from downstairs reminding them that Jo’s her intern for the day and she can’t miss rounds.

They carpool to the hospital and are met with a surprise. Or maybe two.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo this is probably the last update for the next few weeks because I just got my new class schedule and it starts on monday and it is GRUELING. so I will be gone for a while but I will try to write when I can. stay safe everybody!


	3. part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surprise awaits Alex and Jo at the hospital, but it may not be the surprise YOU thought..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii everybodyyyy! it's been a while since I've posted anything and school is still a mess but I hope you guys like this short update. 
> 
> I do not own anything you recognize.
> 
> enjoyyy!!

They get to the hospital and into the lobby where they both see two very familiar faces.

**"Aaron? Amber? What the hell are you two doing here?"** Alex asks, confused but still moves to hug his siblings.

**"Is it so bad for us to visit our big brother? Especially since I haven't seen him for, oh I don't know, 8? 9 years?"** Alex gives them a sheepish smile and feels Jo give him a punch to the arm.

He clutches his arm and turns to glare at Jo.  **"9 years, Alex? Are you serious?"** Jo says as she glares back at Alex.

Once she made her presence known, Aaron and Amber immediately went over to her and smothered her in hugs and questions.

**"Oh my God, we haven't seen you in forever!”** Amber exclaims as she hugs Jo.  **“Alex has been keeping you from us, just like the old days.”** They laugh as Alex just glowers at his two girls.

Jo breaks from Amber’s embrace and pulls Aaron into one.  **“Come here, you jerk. Is your pride and ego so big now that you won’t even give me a hug?”** She teases him as he reluctantly but happily hugs her back.

**“That’s not the only thing that’s big now.”** Aaron says crudely, making him receive a slap on the back of his neck from Alex and slaps on the arm from Jo and Amber.

**“That’s just disgusting.”** Amber says, faking to puke from his joke. 

**“Yeah, we don’t really want to know that. Really don’t want to know any of that.”** Jo shudders in repulse as the two brothers laugh at the two girls’ reaction.

**“Not that I’m glad that you guys are here, but why are you here?”** Alex says after they stop laughing, making Aaron and Amber look at each other.

**“We think, no actually, we know. Something’s wrong with Amber.”** Jo and Alex look at each other with concern plastered on their faces and they look back at the two looking as serious as ever.

-

**“Okay so tell me what happened.”** Alex says firmly after dragging them to a private examination room, not giving them room to object or say anything else. He and Jo start to do a full work up on Amber as she explains her symptoms.

**“I keep having seizures.”** She starts and sees Jo and Alex start to open their mouth to berate her but she beat them to it.  **“And before you say anything, we already went to a hospital and they found nothing to explain why I was having those seizures so we decided to come to you and all your great doctor friends.”** She says, smiling sheepishly at the two doctors in front of her.

Alex and Jo look at each as they shake their heads simultaneously and just continue with doing a full work up on her. They hook her up to some machines and Alex takes her blood.

**“Okay, Jo will continue the work up on you while I go take your blood to the lab and look for Shepherd.”** Alex says after dragging them to a private examination room. Jo, Aaron, and Amber nod at him and he goes out of the room to look for the neurosurgeon.

**“So how have you guys been? It’s been what, thirteen? Fourteen years since we last saw each other?”** Jo says, wanting to know what’s been going on in their lives.

**“I’m in college now, majoring in business.”** Amber says, looking proud of herself.

**“And I have my own car shop now. It’s small but it’s mine, you know?”** Aaron shrugs his shoulders and Jo slaps his arm.

**“Don’t downplay that! I’m so proud of you guys, seriously. You are making something out of yourselves.”** She says as she sits down next to Amber and rubs her arm in a caring manner, truly proud of the two siblings who were like her little brother and sister as well. 

It was just like yesterday that she and Alex would take care of the two of them. When they would get into other foster homes, they would make it a habit of going down to the park everyday, just so they could see and spend time with each other. Most of the time, Alex and Jo were just in the group home because nobody really wanted to foster, let alone adopt, a teenager with a record like theirs.

They talked and catched up for a while until Alex came back with Cristina, Meredith, and Derek in tow.  **“Hey, so Shepherd here is gonna do a neuro consult on you.”** Alex says, going over to Amber’s bedside where Jo and Aaron were.

**“Hey, I remember you. Aaron, right?”** Derek addresses Aaron who nods with a smile as he walks over to Amber.

**“Hey, angel spawn.”** Cristina greets Aaron who just waves hello and laughs at the nickname he gave her.

**“Angel spawn?”** Amber asks, out of curiosity for the nickname for his brother. Her and Jo look at the superior doctors with a look of curiosity on their faces as the doctors and Aaron just laugh at the glare Alex gives them.

**“Yeah, I call him that because he’s much nicer than Evil Spawn over there, like very much nicer.”** Cristina laughs.  **“And you must be Amber?”**

**“I am. And trust me, Aaron is the farthest thing from an angel.”** She says, chuckling at the glare Aaron sends her way.

Jo snorts and says,  **“Yeah, all Karevs are the farthest things from angels really.”** Derek throws Meredith and Cristina a look of confusion and slight amusement, not knowing how the intern knew Karev or his family.

**“Like you’re any better.”** Aaron retorts.

**“Hey, I didn’t say anything about me being an angel. You’re the one that got defensive, angel spawn.”** Jo mocks him and Aaron throws a piece of gauze at her. Alex moves over to Jo and stops them when he sees that she was about to throw her pen at his brother, stopping them from their antics.

**“Alright, let’s focus on Amber now, okay?”** Alex says, holding Jo’s arm that was ready to throw the pen at Aaron. Jo nods and puts the pen back in her lab coat. 

**“Okay, so when did the seizures start?”** Derek asks after throwing another look at the twisted sisters that go unnoticed by Jo, Amber, and Aaron, but not Alex.

Aaron and Amber look at each other.  **“About two weeks ago?”** Amber asks Aaron for confirmation who nods at her.  **“Yeah, it started two weeks ago.”** Derek hums and takes out his pen that had a small flashlight.

**“Okay, follow the light with your eyes. Did anything happen before your seizures started? A fall maybe that could have caused you to bump your head?”** He asks as he positions the light in a distance from her face, moving it.

**“No, not really.”** Amber says, thinking hard about it as she follows the light as asked.  **“Oh wait, I did fall from my bed and hit my head, though. But I didn’t have any bumps or anything major, just a slight headache but that was it.”** Aaron and Alex try to hold their laugh in but fail. They snicker to themselves which causes Jo to slap the side of their necks. 

**“Ow!”** They glare at Jo as they hold their necks but stop after she gives them a glare of their own. But Alex doesn’t stop.

**“Let me guess, you woke up just a second before your alarm and then when it rang, it scared you and made you jump, thus making you fall out of bed?”** Alex asks, laughing still. Jo turns her head away from Amber as she tries to fight a smile growing on her face.

Amber narrows her eyes at Alex.  **“Yeah, so? It happens, it’s normal.”** She says, trying to defend her easily scared and jumpy self.

**“Oh you haven’t changed at all, little one.”** Jo finally breaks and laughs slightly as she puts her hand on Amber’s hair. Amber just shakes her head and pouts at them. She opens her mouth to say something but doesn’t get to because her eyes roll to the back of her head and she starts seizing.

Derek immediately lowers the top of the bed and puts Amber on her side, Cristina and Meredith jump into action and get the medicine Derek orders them to as Jo grabs the oxygen mask since she was the closest to Amber. She puts it on Amber and holds her to her side.

**“She’s having a grand mal seizure, load her with phenobarbital.”** Derek says but before they could give her the drug, Amber stops seizing and the heart monitor shows a straight line.

**“Code blue!”** Jo says, quickly placing Amber on her back. Alex, who was standing closest by the door, gets out and rolls a crash cart in, along with a few nurses who respond to the code. They set everything up and a nurse hands Derek the paddles.

**“Charge to 200. Clear.”** They all look at the monitor, waiting to see a rhythm but nothing comes up. 

Alex starts to feel tears well up in his eyes and he throws his arm around Aaron’s shoulders as a way to comfort him. He reaches his other hand out and grabs Jo’s arm, pulling her to his side, as the three back away as to not get in the way of everyone helping Amber. He catches a glimpse of her face and sees that she’s trying not to break down at seeing Amber like this.

**“Charge to 300. Clear.”** Derek orders and still nothing.  **“Charge again!”** He orders again and waits anxiously for a rhythm on the monitor.

It starts small but it slowly builds.  **“We have a rhythm!”** Meredith says, feeling relieved as she exhales. Alex feels his body relax and Aaron falls to his knees sobbing, not being able to keep his emotions in.

Jo feels a couple of tears escape her eyes but wipes it away as she kneels down next to Aaron, Alex following suit.  **“Hey, it’s gonna be fine.”** Jo says as she rubs his back, trying to calm the sobbing Karev.

**“Amber’s a fighter, she’s gonna get through whatever this is, alright? She’s gonna get through this, she has to..”** Alex tries to reassure Aaron but trails off, his own mind trying to grasp what had just happened. Jo senses this and takes his hand in her free hand, squeezing it tightly.

**“She will get through this. She will. She’s a Karev, for God sakes.”** She chuckles, looking at Aaron who was slowly calming down at her words. She then turns her eyes to Alex who was already looking at her with his tear-filled eyes.  **“She will get through this. She will.”** She says, firmly, having all the faith in the world that Amber will pull through. Alex just nods at her and closes his eyes as he lets his head fall. She moves closer to her, putting her hand on the back of his head as she presses a few soft kisses on the top of his head in an attempt to comfort him.

Alex and Jo pull Aaron up and sit him down on the chair by the wall.  **“We are going to go up and run a CT scan on her, and if we don’t see anything, we’ll run an angiogram.”** Derek says as he approaches the three while the nurses behind him start to fix everything up to wheel Amber up to CT. 

**“Wilson, you stay with them.”** Cristina orders her, to which she just nods at.

**“No. I want her up there with Amber while she’s getting a CT. I can’t be there because I’m family so just put Jo up there, okay?”** Alex pleads to Cristina. She looks at Meredith and Derek who just nod at her. She sighs before nodding at Alex as well, agreeing to what he wants.

**“Maybe you should take him to your house for a while. It’s gonna be a long day.”** Jo tells Alex, who nods at her suggestion, not really having the energy to talk. She gives the two a squeeze on the arm before following Dr. Shepherd outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm gonna be honest with u guys..
> 
> I really don't know where this story is gonna go but I do know that it won't have that many parts, I don't trust myself with kind of responsibility. I do have some ideas on how I want this story to go but i'm very indecisive so that's not good HA
> 
> I don't know when I will be updating again but probably soon because holy week is coming up soon which means no school <3
> 
> thank you for your support! you are all much appreciated and seen <3


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